The very quick and high sales of the book caught us off guard, but fortunately we got the second edition from the printers at the end of last week and the shops should now be stocked again.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.
My specialty as a collector is books that almost have value. When I love a book, I don't buy the first edition, because those have become incredibly expensive. But I might buy a beat-up copy of the second edition, third printing, which looks almost exactly the same as the first edition except that a couple of typos have been fixed.
My gut feeling is that paper and ink are going to be with us for a long time yet, and in substantial quantities, though certainly books are now going to be available in other forms.
So, in effect, my first sale was actually two books.
If you're a retailer and know that once a year you're going to get Mary Higgins Clark's book on a given date, you're going to have an awful lot of copies out there in time for that. You'd have to be simple-minded not to do that - although bookselling prior to 1950 never made that connection.
Most of my books have caused distribution and printing problems in the past.
The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.
With 'California,' editors were reading it, and fast, and others were emailing my agent to request it. Ultimately, there were a few editors interested in the book, and it sold at auction about two weeks after the submission process started. I couldn't believe it!
As soon as I finished the first book, I wrote a second, which I hope to sell this year, and I have just about finished the third book in the series. Two more are already outlined. I'm in this for the long haul.
Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.
No opposing quotes found.